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Post by Walk on Sept 11, 2011 16:15:39 GMT -5
I was looking at designs for a low tech, inexpensive home built grain thresher and came upon a reference to an old issue of Small Farmer's Journal, Winter, Vol. 20, No. 1, in which the main component is a reel mower. Has anyone seen that article or any threshers made from a reel mower? I've got an old mower that could stand a new lease on life. I can envision the blades as the beater bars in a thresher, but wondered if there was more to the design than that?
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Post by MikeH on Sept 11, 2011 17:52:44 GMT -5
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 12, 2011 2:34:27 GMT -5
I am also hoping for some kind of a design for one of these. I am hoping i can find something that can be powered by a pedal power unit. One of my goals is to build a exercise bike style pedal power take off unit that I could use to run a thresher, my grain grinder, possibly a clothes washtub. Lots of cut away diagrams of old threshing machines on the web but building a working unit from scratch is pretty intimidating.
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Post by Walk on Sept 12, 2011 9:40:30 GMT -5
Hi Mike, I saw the link to the youtube video and was thinking of the chain method, then ran across the reel mower idea. We have used a chipper shredder, which worked well, but recently sold it in hopes of coming up with something a little smaller and quieter. Oxbowfarm, have you seen this design? www.technologyforthepoor.com/PedalPowerReport/PedalPowerReport.htmI like its versatility and low cost. We used to have a Rodale pedal power station and used it to run the chipper shredder many years ago when we were threshing prairie flower seeds. |
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Post by atash on Sept 12, 2011 13:56:02 GMT -5
Add me to the list of people who need one--or access to one. I've got a backlog of harvests needing to be threshed. Next year will be even worse.
I've been wondering if we need a local association for growing certain crops that are worth growing, for which there is little existing local infrastructure to process.
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Post by 12540dumont on Sept 12, 2011 15:12:27 GMT -5
I would love a coop thresher. Count me in!
Or a pedal powered thresher, alas, unless I can sew it, I can't make it. My father thought that with brains and charm I would never need to use a power tool. Boy was he wrong.
Anyone who makes one of these, let me know.
I was in a coop with a wool carder. This was about a $450 tool. We split the cost equally and paid the shipping to the next user. Alas, I'm the only survivor so I have the tool and no more sheep! Too bad it won't thresh beans!
Also, I spoke with the Joseph Vanderliet at Certified Foods in Woodland, CA. He's going to grind my corn for .20 a pound. I just have to get it off the cob, into sacks and up there. I also have to do a test grind to see what I want at home. I have an arm breaking Bell Grinder. If I ground all the corn by hand, I'd be as buff as Joseph.
I'm going to drive the corn to Woodland. They have a hammer mill. He's agreed to do it in 100 lb lots.
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Post by Walk on Sept 13, 2011 10:01:36 GMT -5
I hauled out the reel mower and looked it over yesterday. It is geared about 4:1 to its ground-driven wheels. Assuming running a belt to one of the wheels, it doesn't have a large enough diameter reel to make it a very fast beater for threshing. I'm wanting it to do amaranth and sorghum, both of which may stand up to higher impact speeds. Maybe the reel mower idea is best suited to wheat/rye/etc.?
12540dumont - I used to have a wool picker - it may have worked on bean pods but I never tried it for that - all the beans would have ended up being greasy beans with too much lanolin ;>)
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Post by 12540dumont on Sept 13, 2011 15:22:13 GMT -5
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Post by 12540dumont on Sept 13, 2011 15:31:48 GMT -5
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Post by Walk on Oct 18, 2011 8:43:43 GMT -5
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Post by bunkie on Oct 18, 2011 12:10:53 GMT -5
great idea walk! thanks for posting! |
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Post by spacecase0 on Oct 18, 2011 13:47:25 GMT -5
now that is the best thresher I have seen in a long time,
I can't get the youtube link out of the PDF,
can someone link it for me ?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 18, 2011 14:16:03 GMT -5
Great suggestion. I already had a screen like that laying around that I use for a different purpose. I used it for threshing dry beans today. It worked great!!!! Here's a link to the u-tube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pylmEzZ4goA |
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 18, 2011 16:17:22 GMT -5
picture? Schematics?
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Post by Walk on Oct 19, 2011 9:11:53 GMT -5
The PDF file has photos. The design is just a wood frame with hardware cloth and screen attached. The paddle is a chunk of wood with a rubber mat. This is a make-do kind of project - finding whatever you have access to that will work, so no schematics are given.
I hope that this concept will help the needs of the micro farmers and seed savers out there who don't have deep pockets for occasional-use tools.
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